He is holder of the Gershom Scholem chair in Kabbalah (together with Prof. Yehuda Liebes[1]) in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Garb’s research interests cover rabbinic thought, modern and contemporary Kabbalah, and the comparative study of mystical techniques and experiences, particularly Shamanism and Trance.
[8] Following the phenomenological approach of his main teacher, Jonathan Garb is considered one of the leading students of Moshe Idel.
[9] As such, he has been critiqued — among others by Peter Schäfer — as using “academic scholarship and its results as building blocks for a new, postmodern mystical Jewish religion.”[10] Garb’s monographic studies significantly exceed the dominant philological-historical approach in the study of Jewish mystical texts applied by Gershom Scholem and his followers.
In his Manifestations of Power in Jewish Mysticism, Garb offers a Foucauldian reading of rabbinic thought and earlier Kabbalah.
[12] Garb’s third monograph, Shamanic Trance in Modern Kabbalah, offers an Ericksonian reading of sixteenth century Kabbalistic writings and Hasidic literature.
His fifth book covers 'indigenous' psychological theories found in modern Kabbalah from R. Moshe Cordovero till today, focusing on the heart and soul.
In dozens of articles, he has discussed issues such as perceptions of medicine, gender, language, antinomianism, time, doubt, poetics, magic, and sainthood.
[13] Besides his academic writing, Garb has published essays in Hebrew on social critique, the New Age,[14] and the contemporary Haredi world.